Photographic printing apparatuses are commonly adapted for processing a photosensitive material intermittently at the printing station and continuously at the development station. During the intermittent processing at the printing station, replacement of a negative film with a new one may be carried out. Even if the printing operation at the printing station has been finished, a succeeding one of the photosensitive material sheets cannot be subjected to the printing before the development operation at the development station is completed. Also, during the replacement of the negative film with a new one at the printing station, the development operation is inhibited, thus disturbing a smooth cycle of the printing and development operations.
For compensation of the above situation, a modified apparatus is provided in which an accumulator unit acting as a device for eliminating a difference of operational capability between the two stations to allow more efficient development operations is disposed between the printing station and the development station (as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication 2-281255 (1990)). The modified apparatus is designed for processing substantially poster-sized sheets of photosensitive material by holding each of them bent in a loop. If the sheet of photosensitive material is too small or rigid to be looped, it can hardly be handled with such apparatus. The apparatus also allows only a single sheet of the photosensitive material to be held. When two or more of the photosensitive material sheets are to be held, a corresponding number of accumulator units have to be provided. This will cause the apparatus to increase its overall size.
It is an object of the present invention, in view of the foregoing predicament, to provide a photographic printing apparatus capable of holding temporarily a desired number of sheets of a photosensitive material in one location without bending them in loops.